Heated by J. Kenner

  "What the hell do you think you're doing?" I asked, as he held my arm in a vise grip and led me toward the back. Across the room, I saw Evan standing beside Cole, their expressions unreadable.

  I drew in a breath, and hoped to hell this had worked.

  I relaxed just slightly as he led me into the employees only area. Tyler said nothing as he dragged me down the hall to his office. He shoved the door open. "In," he said, that single syllable managing to convey a whole menagerie of emotions.

  I complied.

  "I'm sorry," I said, when he shut the door and stalked toward me. "I wanted--"

  I didn't get to finish. His hands fisted around the lapel of his jacket, and he yanked me toward him, then crushed his mouth over mine, effectively silencing me. Not to mention making me forget what the hell I was trying to say anyway.

  He twirled me around, then slammed us both up against the wall in a violent, wild claiming.

  The kiss burned frantic and hot and had my head spinning and my body humming, although that might have had more to do with the fact that he'd spread the jacket wide and his hands were over my breasts, touching and stroking as if he couldn't get enough of me.

  I knew damn well I couldn't get enough of him.

  I closed my eyes, my body melting beneath him, as my mouth claimed him, as our tongues tasted each other, teased each other.

  He robbed me of thought, of reason. And as I stood there, trapped between him and the wall, I could barely remember my name, much less why I'd come to Destiny. In that moment, he was my entire world, and even as something in my mind screamed for me to get a grip, to remember that he'd conned me--that he was a criminal--all I wanted to do was lose myself forever in this moment.

  And then he pulled back, leaving me gasping and, dammit, very turned on.

  "I already said no," he said. "So why exactly are you dancing on one of my stages?"

  I didn't trust myself to speak quite yet, so I concentrated on buttoning his jacket before lifting my head. "I came to negotiate," I said. "But a negotiation is only as good as the information on the table."

  He moved to the small sofa where he'd fucked me, then sat down, his arm stretched along the back. "This isn't a negotiation," he said.

  "Everything's a negotiation. You're a businessman."

  "And you're a cop."

  "I negotiate all the time. Plea bargains. Immunity deals." I smiled prettily as I settled myself behind his desk. "You know all about immunity deals."

  He chuckled. "And there's the cop," he said. "Control. Confidence. Determination. It was always there, but now it's in context. So tell me, are you good at what you do, Detective Watson?"

  "Yes. I am."

  "I believe you. You were good on that stage, too," he added, with a bolus of heat seasoning his voice. "Sexy. Confident. A woman with a mission."

  "I was on a mission. I want to dance at Destiny. And now I've proved that I can," I rushed to add when he opened his mouth to reply. "I can dance, I can satisfy the customers. I can blend. Bottom line, I can be one of these girls."

  "I've no doubt that you can."

  I cocked my head, wondering at his game. "Really?"

  "I'm more interested in why you want to."

  "I told you. I want to find Amy."

  "Mmm." The sound was thoughtful, and he stood up, then moved to stand behind the chair I was sitting in. He put his hands on my shoulders, then slowly slid one down, over the material of his jacket to brush my chest.

  My breath hitched as the stroke of his fingers on the swell of my breast sent fresh desire coiling through me. "There's something I want you to see," he said, bending down so that his mouth brushed against my ear.

  I trembled, squeezing my legs together as I imagined his hand traveling lower and lower.

  But that wasn't what he had in mind. Slowly, he withdrew a card from the interior pocket of the jacket, letting it trail teasingly over my nipple before he pulled it fully out and tossed it on the desk.

  He brushed a soft kiss over the top of my head, then moved to sit on the edge of the desk, his thigh right beside my hand. "Take a look."

  I picked it up, then saw that it was a postcard from Caesar's Palace. It had a Las Vegas postmark and was addressed to someone named Darcy, care of Destiny.

  D--

  Couldn't say no to Vegas!

  XXOO

  Amy

  "I talked to the girls today," he said. "Most didn't know where she'd gone, but apparently she told Darcy she'd been offered a desk job here--Chicago, I mean."

  "So she changed her mind at the last minute," I guessed. "Probably a guy involved--and sent Darcy a postcard so she'd know." All in all, it seemed clear cut. Though it still bugged me that she hadn't gotten in touch with Candy, too.

  "You're welcome to talk to Darcy tomorrow. She worked the lunch shift today, so she's already gone. But I don't really see the need for you to play undercover operative. Unless you're thinking about it in a bedroom role-playing capacity, in which case we can keep negotiations open."

  "Funny," I said, turning the chair slightly so I could see him better. "But I still want to dance."

  "Why?"

  Because I wanted to learn the truth about who Tyler was and what he did. But I didn't say that. Instead, I turned to a different truth. "Because I liked it."

  "Did you?" He slid off the desk and put his hands on the arms of his chair, caging me in. He pushed it back, giving him room to kneel in front of me.

  My pulse kicked up in anticipation of his touch, but all I said was, "Tyler."

  "I liked the way you looked up there," he said, then moved his hands to rest them on my bare knees. "I liked the way you looked at me."

  "All those men," he continued, his voice low and intimate as he gently spread my thighs, making me just a little crazy. Making me just a little wet.

  "Watching you. Wanting you. And you wanted me."

  "Yes. Oh, god, yes."

  One hand began to gently stroke my thigh, teasing me, but moving no higher than where the hem of the jacket brushed my skin. With his other hand, he reached for the jacket, and cleverly flipped open the top button.

  "That's your opening offer, isn't it?" He popped the other button open. "The deal you came to negotiate? I let you dance at Destiny, and you let me touch you?"

  He used both hands now to push apart the lapels of the jacket, revealing my breasts, my abdomen, and those pretty silk panties. "Isn't that like making a deal with the devil?" he asked, as his hand trailed down, making me tremble, then over the panties to find me so very, very wet.

  "Or maybe you just like playing with the bad boys," he said, as he slipped a finger deep inside me.

  I arched back, gasping.

  "Hook your legs over the chair's arms," he ordered.

  "Tyler, no--"

  "Do it."

  I did, and he lowered his mouth to my sex, using one hand to pull the panties and G-string aside, and the other to tilt the chair back until it seemed like I would fall. I was head-down, completely at his mercy, open and wide and essentially helpless.

  And I was desperately, hopelessly, turned on.

  He ran his tongue the length of me, and I shook as a storm of sparks rocketed through me, the sensation all the more spectacular because of the way the chair rocked with my arousal.

  "This won't work," Tyler said.

  "No," I moaned. "Don't stop."

  But he was opening the desk drawer, pulling out scissors. "I need both hands to keep the chair from toppling," he said, then cut the panties right off me before tossing the scissors onto the floor with a metallic clank.

  I laughed, the sound a burst of shock and pleasure. He met my eyes, his grin mischievous and deliciously sexy. "You taste good," he said, then once again sank between my legs.

  His hands stayed on the chair, so that he was touching me only with his mouth. He teased me, licking and sucking, playing and tormenting.

  And with each touch, each stroke, the pressure inside me built and buil
t.

  I was open to him--wide and open and I wanted this. Wanted whatever he had to give. Wanted to lose myself in whatever pleasure he could share, whatever wicked, sensual torment he could devise.

  In that moment, I think I would have done anything if only he would swear that this feeling would never stop.

  Little tremors shot through me, making my body shake, the chair tremble. Precursors of an explosion that was close, so close, so close--

  And then the world shattered, the chair rocking, my body clenching. I cried out for him to stop because I didn't think I could take it anymore, but he was relentless, taking everything from me, pulling every drop of pleasure out of me, taking me so high I was breathless, then crashing me back down to earth again where he scooped me into his arms.

  "Wow," I murmured, finding myself curled against his chest, my body bare against his shirt, the jacket hanging open around me. "Wow."

  "Very wow," he said, as he carried me across the room and laid me on the couch. "I may have to put one of those chairs in every room."

  I laughed. "I wouldn't object."

  "Tell me you liked that," he said, as he sat on the edge of the sofa beside me.

  "Yes. God, yes."

  "I knew you were a cop, Sloane. I knew you were a cop, and I fucked you. I played you. And you were so damn pissed at me."

  I squinted at him, unsure about this change in direction. But his expression was still soft. Gentle.

  I propped myself up on my elbow. "Yes," I said. "I was."

  "Would you have preferred me to have you removed from the party? To have never touched you? Never put my tongue on your cunt, my hands on your breasts? Would you rather I'd never made you come, and never felt you explode in my arms?"

  "No," I whispered, my body hot and needy.

  "Or what about the waiter? Do you regret that? Sitting bold and naked and open and turned on, so desperately aroused, not because of him but because you knew that watching you made me hard?"

  I wanted to lie. So help me, I did.

  But I couldn't bring it to my lips. "No."

  "I know it," he said simply. "I know you."

  I tilted my head to him. "Tyler," I said, not even certain what I wanted, what I was asking. I simply needed the sound of his name on my lips as some sort of proof that this was real.

  "Shhh." He gently pressed his fingertip to my lip. "I started out just watching you. I must have watched the damn security video a dozen times. Then at the party. I couldn't take my eyes off you, even though I knew what you were. What you are."

  He stroked me gently, and I closed my eyes, rolling on a wave of pleasure so intense I thought I would surely drown in it. "By everything I know, you are not the woman that I should want," he said, as he trailed his finger over the wound on my hip. "Detective Sloane Watson, with just over a week of medical leave remaining. A cop, of all things. And I find myself in the unexpected position of wanting you desperately. Of wanting to stoke this fire that rages between us, hot and wild and so very combustible."

  He traced his finger along my collarbone, then over my side, along the curve of my waist, following my silhouette all the way to my hip.

  "I want to burn with you, Detective. And, Sloane, you should know that I make it a point to get what I want."

  He smiled at me, slow and easy and full of confidence. "So this is the deal I'm offering you. While you're on medical leave, you'll dance at Destiny, you'll have free access to the club. But during that time, you are mine."

  "Yours?" I repeated.

  "Completely," he said. "With everything that entails. To pleasure. To punish. To tend. I won't hurt you and I won't scare you. But I will use you," he added, as he slipped his hand between my legs and slid two fingers inside me. "For my pleasure and for yours."

  I squeezed my legs around his hand, my body clenching tight, drawing him in farther.

  "Agree, and you can dance at Destiny. Say no, and you walk away tonight."

  "I'm at a disadvantage here. I'm naked. Your fingers are inside me."

  "You're the one who took off your clothes, Sloane. That was your move, remember? I'm only playing the game. And now it's checkmate."

  He thrust deeper inside me, and as he did, he leaned forward to lightly bite my breast. I gasped in surprise, but also in pleasure.

  "I know you like risk," he said, and there was seduction in his voice. "You like excitement. And, my darling detective, you like the way I make you feel."

  I licked my lips. After what I'd done with him, I could hardly argue.

  "You came freely to my room. You stripped when I told you to. You stood naked in a window while I touched you." His voice, low and hot, swirled around me, teasing and tempting. "And tonight, you took off your clothes in front of other men, but you thought of me."

  I'd been holding his gaze, hot and hard and defiant. But at that last, I looked away. God help me, he was right. Even now, I was having to fight the way he made me feel, the way he heated me up, so that every cell in my body burned for his touch.

  But the truth was, I didn't want to fight it. I liked the way he looked at me. Liked the fact that my nipples got hard when his gaze dipped to my breasts. Liked the fact that the tone of his voice could make my body weak with longing. I'd known lust before; I'd known attraction. But until Tyler, I'd never experienced this wild burning, this desperate, uncontrolled passion that left me hot and needy and alive.

  I felt a bit like Pavlov's dog--one look from him, and my body was primed. One touch, and I all but exploded.

  It was unfamiliar and a little unnerving. But I liked it. Christ, how I liked it.

  "If I told you to go back to that chair right now, you'd do it." He spoke matter-of-factly, but I saw the challenge--and the mischief--flash in his eyes. "You'd sit in that chair and spread your legs. And if I asked you to touch yourself--to stroke and tease while I got hard watching your body grow wet and slick, so desperate to sink myself inside you that I couldn't stand it anymore--if I told you to do that, I think you would."

  My mouth went dry, my body limp.

  "Tell me the truth, Sloane. Would you do that for me?"

  "Yes," I whispered, because I already knew he would see a lie.

  "Then take the deal."

  "You told me you don't date the girls who work at the club."

  "I break all kinds of rules, Detective. But not in this case."

  I looked at him, confused. "What do you mean?"

  "I'm not going to date you. I'm going to fuck you."

  A shiver ran through me, one I didn't even bother to hide. "What exactly do you have in mind for me?" I asked.

  "If I told you, it wouldn't be as fun."

  I licked my lips. "Before, you talked about pleasure and passion and even a little fear."

  "I remember."

  "Did you mean it? Or were you trying to shake me because you knew I was a cop?"

  "But you are a cop. You must know all about the impact of adrenaline. Of fear. How it heightens sensation, even the sensation of pleasure."

  "I don't want to be tied up--"

  "No," he said, and the word was infinitely gentle. "I won't. But I will take you to that edge, Sloane. And if you are willing, I'll take you over."

  Our eyes locked. I'm not sure how long I stayed lost in the clear blue of his eyes. Then he spoke, softly but firmly. "That's it. That's the arrangement. Take it--and make me a very happy man."

  "Arrangement?" I repeated. "That sounds so polite and proper."

  "Are you suggesting I'm neither polite nor proper?"

  "Not at all," I said, then grabbed his collar and pulled my lips to his. "I'm saying flat out that I hope you're not." I kissed him hard, then leaned back. "When I agree to something, Mr. Sharp, I go all in."

  His brow quirked up. "I'm very pleased to hear it."

  He stood, then gave me his hand and helped me up. Slowly, he closed the jacket that I still wore, carefully fastening each button. Then he went to his desk and picked up his phone. "Greg, bring me Ms
. Watson's shoes. I imagine they're still by Stage Four."

  Chapter Sixteen

  Tyler went into the hall to meet Greg and, I presumed, to fetch the rest of my clothes as well.

  But when he stepped back into the room, all he had were the shoes. "Let's go," he said. "Put these on and button that up."

  "Um, I kind of need my clothes."

  He leaned against the closed door. "No. You really don't."

  I stood and buttoned the jacket, my eyes narrowed. "You're really going to make me cross through The Drake in this?"

  "One, you agreed to the terms."

  "I didn't realize it applied to wardrobe," I grumped, making him laugh.

  "And two, we're not heading to The Drake." A touch of mischief lit his face. "Not yet."

  "Oh." Fingers of dread--and, yes, of excitement and anticipation--curled through me. "Should I even ask?"

  "You can," he said. "But I won't tell."

  He moved back to his desk and picked up the phone again. "One more thing, Greg," he said into the handset as he tossed a ring of keys onto his desk. "Tell Cole the keys to the Ducati are in my office. I need to take the Buick tonight."

  He hung up and looked at me. "I'd lent him the car," he said. "But I think you'll be more comfortable in it than on the back of my bike."

  "I wouldn't mind the bike," I said, then glanced down at my outfit--or lack thereof. "But I'd need my clothes back."

  "We'll have to put that on our overall to-do list." As he looked at me, I saw the flicker of something hot on his face. Then he circled the desk and moved in front of me. I stood just a bit straighter, my body once again primed for his touch, going soft and ready simply from his proximity.

  Without a word, he led me to the desk, picked me up at the waist, and sat me on the surface, my legs together and my feet dangling. I held my breath, already craving his touch.

  "I think I'd like burning down the highway with your arms around me," he said, as he took my thighs in each hand, then roughly spread them apart, sending sparks of anticipation shooting through me. Before I even had time to gasp, he'd tugged me closer, so I was barely on the table, and my sex was right there, open and ready for him.

  "I wonder," he said, as he cupped me with his hand. I drew in a shuddering breath, arching back, still so sensitive, so ready. "Would the bike's vibration get you hot? Get you ready for me?" Slowly, he eased a finger inside me, then two, then three. I was so wet, so wanting, and my body clenched tight around him. His groan of satisfaction swept over me, and almost melted with pleasure.