The Cinderella Mission (Family Secrets #1)(54)
Author: Catherine Mann

Screw this. She wanted to know, he’d tell her. “Well, at least you’re safe!”

“I don’t want safe!” She thumped his chest with both palms. “I want to do my job the same as you do.” Her breast heaved under her dress, before she spun away. “God, there’s no reasoning with you.”

“Don’t walk out on me.” He grabbed her arm.

She jerked free. “You can watch over me with your cameras. Then you won’t have to worry about any messy arguments or emotions. You can keep your distance and brood, rather than face what we did together. What we felt. Hell, you can’t even commit to a real partnership. It’s no surprise any hint of a real relationship would send the big bad agent running for the hills.”

Her words raked across emotions already too damned raw, fired the gut-burning desire he’d held in check all day. For months. For years, around this woman.

He studied the set line of her jaw. The rigid brace of her shoulders. She burned for this job just as he had for so many years, even before he’d lost Celia.

Kelly wasn’t going to give up. She lived for this job. And damn it, so did he.

His mental image of those resignations went up in flames. He could almost see the edges blackening, curling, turning to powder. With them went his hopes of scratching out some kind of future with Kelly that wouldn’t send him to the nuthouse worrying about her.

“Fine. You want real? Here’s reality. Nobody’s running now.” His hand shot behind her head, tangled in her hair and tugged her head back.

Before she could do more than gasp—perfect since parted lips suited him damned fine—his mouth crashed down on hers.

Ethan drew in the taste of Kelly. The scent of her. The feel of her soft body under his hands. Every bit of her saturated his senses with as much potency as her voice.

He cupped her bottom, lifted, rocked their hips against each other.

She whimpered under his mouth.

Control. He had to find it. He eased back, hands shaking. “I’m being too rough.”

“No,” she insisted, drawing his bottom lip between her teeth, “you’re not.”

He rested his forehead against hers. “Do you want—”

“Yes!” She jerked his shirtfront. “I want. Do I ever want. I want you. I’ve always wanted you and don’t know how to stop.”

And neither did he.

He slanted his mouth over hers. Without breaking their kiss, he backed them toward the stairs. Bodies locked, they kissed and stumbled up the steps, flattening against the wall to tunnel hands under clothing. Finally, they made it to the landing. He reached for the door, but before he could twist the knob, Kelly hooked a leg behind his and rocked their balance. Or maybe that was the effect of her kiss.

They fell to the floor, Ethan twisting at the last second to cushion her from the floor.

“Now,” she whispered against his lips, kicking off her shoes. “Here.”

She didn’t have to tell him twice. His hand burrowed under her dress to whip her stockings and panties down and off. He pitched the pink wisp fluttering over the banister.

In a tangle of arms and legs and need he rolled her under him. She worked the fly button free on his jeans with a newfound expertise. No fumbling, she found him. He gave a brief thought to undressing, but Kelly’s insistent touch, her kisses, nips, sighs urging him on, told him she wanted this as much as he did. Slow would come later.

He tore his wallet from his back pocket and found protection.

Damn it, never would he lose sight of protecting Kelly.

And then he was in her. Only fair since she’d been inside him all day. All month. For as long as he could remember and right now he couldn’t seem to remember anything but her.

And the feel of her gripping him with moist heat.

Under him, in him, a part of him.

He moved within her, holding back until his every muscle strained, screaming for release. The longer he held back, the longer he kept her, the longer he didn’t have to contemplate what could happen in the next twenty-four hours.

That he couldn’t let happen.

He couldn’t lose her.

He couldn’t lose—

Her cry of release ripped through him, her beautiful body arching up and into him once, and again. His own shout mingled with hers until he sagged on top of her, absorbing her aftershocks.

Keeping her with him a few seconds longer.

Chapter 15

Kelly trembled with the residual waves of pleasure rippling through her.

She’d wanted him. Wanted this. But hadn’t fully understood the storm churning through Ethan. The intensity of whatever tore at him radiated in waves. She’d grappled her way over his wall and now didn’t know what to do with what she’d found. There weren’t books for her to study on this one, and her lack of experience in relationships left her with precious little to draw upon.

She kissed his neck and waited for him to talk, a better option than to risk saying the wrong thing. Ethan rolled off her and sat with his back against the wall, dragging in air.

He traced a finger along her neckline, dipping in to pull the chain around her neck, down to the stone dangling from it, the aquamarine from their mine trip. “You’re right. I should have told you about the meeting with Samantha.”

Shock kept her from talking more than indecision—and hope.

Maybe…

“It’s been a hell of a day.” He untwined the chain and stood.

Ethan straightened his clothes, then extended a hand to her. She rose to stand beside him, ready to curl up in his bed and savor whatever time they had left together, to grab some intimacy with this elusive man.

Instead, he turned the corner and climbed the last few steps to his computer wall. He reached past her to his side of the computer console. “Hatch gave me the file on my parents’ murder.”

Kelly rubbed the tensed muscles in his arm, trying to understand where he was going with this. “That’s good. What does it say?”

“I haven’t read it yet.” He held it as if testing its weight. “But I can’t stop thinking about it. And yeah, I misstepped earlier. Thinking about them…hell, yeah, I want to keep you locked up tight here.”

He held up a hand. “I know. You don’t want protection.” Ethan dropped the file on the desk beside her. “Here.”

Kelly picked it up. “You want me to look?”

“Go ahead,” he shot over his shoulder as he loped down the stairs to the kitchen.

Already she could see him pulling away, but this time he’d left a piece of himself behind. While Ethan pulled water bottles from the refrigerator, Kelly flipped through pages, icy horror chilling away the remains of passion. Was he trying to tell her something by showing her the brutality of how his parents had died?