Yep, blackmail was a very dirty word, and a man had to have some way of backing up his threat.
“I have to meet with my team this afternoon.” He rolled away from her, stretching lazily as she seemed to freeze beside him. “We have bad guys—and girls—to catch.” He threw her a careless smile as he untangled his legs from the sheet and rose from the bed.
Her eyes were narrowed on him, but her fingers had a death grip on the sheet as she held it over her.
She was thinking, though. He could always tell when she was rolling something around in her head.
He remembered before she left, catching that look on her face and wanting to be so deep inside her that she couldn’t hide anything from him. That need had only grown. Right now, he would give his eyeteeth to be buried so deep inside her that even their cells would bond.
“So what am I supposed to do now that you’ve had me fired from my job?” she snapped back at him irately. “I’m going to assume that during this game you’re playing, I’m not allowed to work.”
Dawg scratched at his chest, feeling a surge of satisfaction as her gaze licked over him. He was naked, aroused, and he would be damned if he was going to try to hide it from her.
“You have a job,” he assured her, turning to the low chest of drawers on the other side of the room and pulling out clean clothes.
“What kind of a job?” The low, wrathful tone had his lips twitching again.
“Fucking me. I’m fairly high maintenance, Crista. You won’t need another job.”
Then he ducked to avoid the alarm clock that came sailing at his head, then to avoid the picture frame that held a picture of his Harley. But he felt a swell of joy rise inside him as he jumped for her, gripping her wrist as she reached for the lamp, pulling her under him and holding her to the mattress as she bucked and writhed and cursed with all the exuberance of a damned sailor.
Crista couldn’t remember ever being so furious. A haze of red distorted her view, and a mix of murderous, adrenaline-crazed fury pumped through her veins.
“You bastard!” She tried to scream past the tightening in her chest, her throat. “Do I have whore written on my forehead? Do I look like one of your sex-starved little bimbos?”
She cringed from his body lying atop hers now, from the heavy, na**d thighs pushing between her own and the powerful arms that held his body just far enough above her to allow her to breathe.
She wasn’t unaffected. Arousal pumped side by side with the fury, bringing angry tears to her eyes as she collapsed beneath him, exhausted, panting as she glared up at him.
“I hate you,” she hissed, feeling the first tear fall from her eye and track down her cheek. “I can’t believe what a bastard you’ve turned into.”
His gaze lightened, then became shadowed as he held her wrists in one hand and the other came up to touch the tear on her face.
“You cried then, too.” His voice was soft, brooding. “Didn’t you? When I kissed you, you cried.”
Oh yeah, she was going to answer that one for him. Not. Not in a million years would she ever tell him what he did to her then, and now.
“You told me you dreamed of me.” His jaw tensed as a flash of lust lit up his eyes like lightning.
“I wouldn’t dream of you if you were the last man on earth,” she scoffed, panting at the effort to force him to release her. “Get off me. I don’t want you anywhere near me.”
She didn’t want the blood pumping to her ni**les and her cl*t with a force that had them straining, tight and engorged, against the material of her clothing as he covered her.
She didn’t want her skin so sensitive she could feel the hairs on his chest, even through her shirt.
And she didn’t want the pleasure that was building, burning through her as he held her beneath him, restrained. Helpless.
“I thought of that all night as you slept,” he said guardedly. “Taking you again, having you beneath me. It was better than the dreams, Crista. They didn’t even compare.”
His voice dropped to a guttural whisper as his gaze flared with carnal heat. It was mesmerizing, watching his gaze flare, then lighten with sexual need.
“Get off me, Dawg.” It was all she could do to push the words past her lips. “I won’t let you turn into me a whore for your own amusement.”
“Say that word again, and I’ll make you regret it, Crista.” The order was clipped and filled with menace. “I haven’t called you a whore, and I never believed you were one.”
“Don’t you? Evidently you do, if you think my only job is f**king you.” She strained against him again, only to still as she felt the broad head of his c**k butt against the crotch of her thin panties. Too thin, because she could feel the heat of his thick flesh pressing against her.
“Until I figure out what the hell is going on, that’s exactly what your job is. Because, make no mistake, fancy-face, I’m not a very charitable person anymore. Just because you’re not guilty doesn’t mean you don’t look guilty. You need me so you can stay out of jail. And you know the price for my help.”
Was he serious? And did it really matter at this point if he was or not? Her senses were suddenly rioting at the feel of his c**k head pressing against her, causing her to grow wetter, her flesh more sensitive.
She didn’t want this.
Crista shook her head as she felt Dawg’s lips at her cheek, rough velvet, sliding over her flesh as her breath hitched in her throat.
“Nothing matters to me but f**king you.” Self-disgust filled his voice. “Being so deep inside you that this hunger that’s eaten at my gut for eight years dissolves.” His head lifted as he glowered down at her from between sensually narrowed eyes. “Make no mistake, Crista, you will spread those pretty legs for me again, and you’ll give me what I want. Because it’s the only way I can keep your ass out of jail.
Walk away from me, and I won’t lift a finger to help you when they slap the cuffs on your wrists and you disappear. Because, baby, it will so be out of my hands then that I couldn’t help you if I wanted to.”
“But you can if I’m sleeping with you?” Disillusionment, disappointment, he heard it all in her voice.
Quite simply, as he said, unless he relented, she had no choice.
“Of course.” His smile was tight and hard. “I’ll know where you are. I’ll know if you’re playing dirty or playing nice, and then putting my neck on the line won’t feel like a fool’s f**king errand to me.