Chapter 2
“Don’t do this to me,” she whispered. The fine tremor that went through her was almost imperceptive. “Just let me go.”
Another tear slipped free despite her efforts to hold it back.
She could use tears on his brother quite effectively, but Raeg had always seen through each attempt if he caught her working Falcon with a sheen of dampness gleaming in those unusually violet eyes. These tears weren’t fake. Summer was hurting. And that pain actually had his chest aching as he wiped away the tear rolling down her cheek with his thumb.
“I need…” Her breathing hitched as she tried to avoid his gaze. “I need to go, Raeg.”
“You cared about her, didn’t you?” he asked her softly. “More than you’re letting anyone know.”
Summer had been like a robot during the viewing and funeral service. Cold and hard, refusing to speak or socialize as all the other mourners were. Not that he could blame her. The fact that she had been forced to be there was an insult to her that had caused him to cringe. He’d hated giving her the ultimatum from Gia’s family, but he’d agreed it was the only way to keep any gossip or suspicion from arising.
“Why are you doing this?” Her whispered plea tore at his conscience. “Why do you want to hurt me?”
He covered those trembling lips with his, uncertain why he followed the impulse. For years he’d wondered how her pretty, pouty lips would taste, how they’d feel beneath his. He’d fantasized about them, hungered for them.
And she was leaving …
Slanting his lips over hers, he pushed his tongue past them as she froze beneath his kiss, for just a second. Just long enough for him to pull her closer, to taste the sweetness, the feminine surprise that had her lips parting for him. A second later a whimper left her lips and the heat of her response filled his senses.
Slender, silken arms went around his neck. Her fingers speared into his hair, nails pricking at his scalp, sending a rush of pleasure burning through his senses.
Every shred of common sense was yelling at him, warning him back. The mistake he knew he was making was tantamount. The biggest mistake he could possibly make with the one woman he should never make it with.
But damn, she tasted good, felt good. Sweet heat and shuddering response. She was burning like a flame in his arms and he wanted nothing more than to stoke that blaze higher. To have the freedom to touch her, excite her, as his brother restrained her …
Falcon stepped into the bedroom, his lips parting to call out Summer’s name a second before the sight of her in his brother’s arms stilled the sound. He closed the door, taking in the scene before him as every drop of blood in his body surged south. He was instantly painfully erect, throttling the groan rising in his throat.
This was his most erotic fantasy come to life … or part of it. The sight of Summer held firmly against his brother, helpless within the pleasure she was receiving. All that long black hair flowed down her back like a living cape, her slender body arched against Raeg, her arms curled around his neck, fingers buried in his hair.
She looked so damned feminine, so delicate and sensual that the need burning inside him threatened to become an inferno.
Stepping behind her, Falcon lowered his head, his lips just above her ear.
“Might I join you, Belle?” he asked gently. “Or is this pleasure for you and Raeg alone?”
He couldn’t imagine not being part of the very thing he’d conspired to begin for years, the very pleasure that he knew he hadn’t craved alone. Raeg had battled the need for her, battled his own emotions and hungers with a strength Falcon couldn’t have found in himself in the same circumstances.
Summer froze, the erotic whimper rising in her throat barely silenced, weakness flooding her, carnal sensuality rushing through her system.
She could barely breathe. She’d fantasized for far too long, masturbated to the wicked thoughts of these two men. There had been too many sleepless nights, too many times she had tossed and turned, tormented by the unknown, but the need to touch, to taste the power and passion she’d imagined they could unleash on her senses.
Forcing her eyes open she was caught by the gold and brown raptor’s eyes watching her so closely.
“Oh, she wants,” Raeg stated softly. “Those pretty eyes are full of how much she wants.”
What was she doing?
Her hands fell from Raeg’s hair to his shoulders, her fingers clenching in the material of his shirt as Falcon’s broad hands rested on her hips. The heat of them sank through the thin material of the black sheath she still wore, sensation building in her skin beneath it.
Still caught by Raeg’s eyes, she forced herself to breathe, not to whimper, as Falcon’s hands slid slowly up her sides, curving beneath her arms, then drawing them up until he was placing her hands against the sides of his neck where he held them firmly.
As Falcon held her to him, keeping her arms raised, her body opened and vulnerable, Summer lost control of the moan trapped in her throat. Raeg’s hands smoothed up her sides, his head bending as his hands framed the sides of her breasts, lifting them to further reveal the upper curves of her sensitive flesh.
The rasp of his lips over them, the stroke of his tongue, and the eroticism of the act drugged her senses. Helpless against the sensations surging through her, her eyes drifted closed and she had no choice but to let Falcon support her weight. Because it felt so good, because pleasure was racing through her with such a high, she was helpless against it.
“Summer, did you still want…”
Her eyes jerked open, and Raeg sprang back from her so fast that if she’d been depending on him for balance, she would have ended up on the floor. Thankfully, Falcon didn’t seem nearly so ashamed to be caught by the senator.
“Oh well…” Davis Allen cleared his throat, his gray eyes filled with shock as they went from Summer to Raeg to Falcon and back to Summer. “Whenever you’re ready dear…” Summer lowered her arms, the feel of Falcon’s hands now at her hips kept her balanced as she found her feet once again, his hold possessively warm.
Backing out of the room, a flush suffusing his dark features, the senator quickly closed the door, leaving a heavy, suddenly uncomfortable silence behind.
Summer stared at Raeg’s back where he stood across the room now, close to the door, rubbing at the back of his neck.
“Deal with this,” Raeg told his brother, the brusque, cool tone of his voice tinged with regret. “I have to go.”
And just that fast, he was gone.
Shame washed through her.
Whatever he’d meant to do, he definitely hadn’t wanted anyone to know about it.
“God forbid anyone should believe he stooped so low as to actually touch the little Georgia hick,” she whispered. “How embarrassing.”
“Summer, that wasn’t…”
“Just stop, Falcon.” She turned to him, inhaling deeply at the tenderness in his expression. “I know you’re going to defend him, and it’s not needed.”
She stared up at him, the cool, pale blue eyes that belied all the emotions she knew this brother hid inside. His Spanish nature rarely showed in his expression or his gaze, but they’d worked together long enough that she could often tell what he was feeling when no one else could.
“I need to go,” she whispered, hearing the shakiness in her voice, feeling that trapped, smothering sensation that sometimes surrounded her. “Please. I just need some time…”
He laid two fingers against her lips. “I came to your room to wish you farewell, sweetheart, not to argue with you or attempt to change your mind,” he told her softly. “But running isn’t going to help. I know you, and we both know that’s what you’re doing.”
“I need to rest.” She was so tired. Summer could feel the weariness building inside her. She’d never imagined the past was as broken as it had been, and that those she’d been so loyal to could have betrayed her and those she cared about so easily.
She’d always known the world wasn’t what others perceived it to be, but to learn it was even worse than that had shaken her to her core.
“Rest then.” His hand cupped her cheek, his lips whispering across hers. “I’ll wait for you. For a while. But don’t forget to return Summer, or I’ll come looking for you.” His expression hardened then. “And you don’t want me to come looking for you.”
She had a feeling that it wouldn’t matter.
As he left the room she stared at the clothes laid out, those waiting, and she just didn’t have the energy or the patience to deal with packing. Her car had arrived earlier, and was waiting out front. All she really needed was her go bag and the small suitcase she always kept packed for emergencies.
Grabbing both, she then picked up her purse and left the bedroom without a backward glance before slipping from the house. She didn’t tell Davis Allen good-bye, and she’d already talked to Alyssa that morning. There was nothing left to do but …
Run.
Raeg watched the little black cherry Ferrari leave the estate from where he stood at the window of the senator’s office and tried to tell himself it was for the best. Just as he tried to tell himself she’d be back. He knew he was lying to himself on both fronts.
The feeling that Summer was finished with her life in DC left a heaviness in his chest he couldn’t ignore, and hunger eating at his gut.
He could still taste her against his lips and he still ached for more of her. Ached in ways no other woman had ever made him ache. And that made her dangerous. It ensured that above all other women, this one was denied him. He couldn’t allow himself to care, to allow his guard to slip, especially with a woman who had once been part of the CIA. An agent. A woman who would be perceived as the enemy. He didn’t dare endanger his own soul in such a way again. He couldn’t allow Falcon to do so, if there was a way to stop it.
Letting her go wasn’t easy though.
The scent of her still lingered in his senses, the warmth of her body was a ghostly weight teasing against his chest, teasing his memory, testing his resolve. He had a feeling that forgetting those stolen moments in her suite would be impossible and he wasn’t even certain if he wanted to forget.
He’d had a taste of the forbidden though, and now, he couldn’t help but ache for more.
